115
Irish Women Artists 1870 - 1970
Summer 2014
101. Deborah Brown (b.1927)
Prayer (1952)
Oil on board, 46 x 56
Signed
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Deborah Brown was born in 1927, spending the war years in Cushendun where she knew
Humbert Craig. After a year at the Belfast College of Art, she attended the National College
of Art in Dublin. Early solo shows included the CEMA Gallery, Belfast, 1951, the British
Council Gallery, Glasgow, 1955, and the Ulster Museum (organised by John Hewitt) in 1956,
after which she spent several years designing sets for Mary O’Malley at the Lyric Theatre.The
NewVision Centre Gallery in London exhibited abstract paintings in 1959 and 1964; there
followed an important commission for a series of large paintings for the new Ferranti building
in Manchester; and from 1966 she exhibited regularly at the Ritchie Hendriks Gallery in Dub-
lin, by then working in fibre glass and moving towards three dimensions. Her many awards
include the Carroll Prize in the IELA, the Open Painting Exhibition, Belfast, (both 1970), and
a sculpture prize in Limerick in 1983. International exhibitions included representing Ireland
at Cagnes sur Mer in 1973, and ROSC 71 and 84, which both toured America. After a 1982
mid-career retrospective, shown in Belfast and Dublin, her sculpture made a significant return
to figurative themes.
